Chamber launches retail action committee to study issues

Karon Mills and Jeri Hamilton facilitate the NXLeveL business class where the participants discussed shopping patterns.

Just last month the first gathering of the new retail action committee of the Carbon County Chamber of Commerce gathered to discuss their role and goals. The Chamber has been encouraged to form this committee by many concerned retailers in the membership. The group will be addressing the concerns, cultivate working relationships with the businesses in Price, forming action plans and long term goals to maintain a vibrant retail community.

The first order of business was to conduct an in depth marketing analysis. This was launched last week by Karon Mills, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce and Jeri Hamilton, director of the Small Business Development Center. Once the survey was created, which consists of about 100 questions and deals with shopping patterns, habits, attitudes and general marketing questions, the next step was to establish focus groups to discuss the market with and find out what are the shopping patterns of people from specific demographic areas in the community.

Hamilton's NxLeveL graduating business class was the first group to discuss the survey. Over 30 people from Carbon and Emery counties were part of this study. All the questions pertained to shopping habits, destination decisions, likes and dislikes. Once the data is all gathered and questions answered the group will discuss the leakage to the Wasatch front as well as to Grand Junction, Colo.

The second group was a business class of students from Carbon High School and the third group to discuss market concerns was a selected group of managers, agency representatives, governmental and banking executives as well as other leaders in the community.

There are two additional focus groups scheduled.

The information gathered will provide retailers with knowledge that can assist in making better decisions about pricing, variety of products, selection, and customer service, as well as which advertising media most people utilize to make buying decisions.

In addition to the survey the retail action committee will work with various merchants and groups to discuss hours, workshops, marketing strategies, and educational classes to make Price a more vibrant shopping community.